train wreck

Ever witness a pile-up of circumstance that leads to an absolute train wreck?
You see it coming a mile away but can do nothing to prevent it. Either they can't see it coming or they're moving too fast to stop.

I was a passenger in a car last week for the first time in what feels like...forever. Sitting there, not driving, I could look out the window (I like looking out the window). There was a pick-up truck in front of us, driving like a jerk-face (<-- pg version of what I said at the time), squealing his tires at every acceleration.

Approaching a side-street from a main-road: a jogger starts to cross heading in the direction opposite traffic. A cyclist, heading with traffic, approaches the same side street from the other direction. The pick-up truck accelerates into the turn onto the side street, squealing his tires.

The jogger just made it past the truck, I saw him turn to look back over his shoulder as he ran. The cyclist, also now past the truck, looks over her shoulder to see what the tire-squeal was about. As she does, her path veers wide; putting her right into the line of traffic coming up behind her.

The driver in my car also turns in response to the tire-squealing, muttering something about "driving like an a-hole". He was looking at the truck. Not ahead at the cyclist that had just veered into his path.

I yelped "look!"
Not screamed: there wasn't enough time to generate any volume.
Every muscle in my body tensed, my brain screaming at me "nonononono". We were about to plow her down.

He snapped his attention back to forward and abruptly corrected his course as much as he could within the confines of the lane (thank god, he he didn't over correct into on coming traffic) and we blew past the cyclist, inches from what would have have been serious injury if not death for her.

She barely noticed.
She was still looking at the truck, still squealing it's tires as it wove its way up a straight street-- "playing" with the noise of it's tires.

One jerk driver: distracting enough to potentially kill a cyclist, or 2 or more drivers (had he over corrected into traffic) and their passengers, and endangering a pedestrian (that jogger barely made it out of the way).

I'm relieved things turned out the way they did. It turned my mind down avenues of watching wrecks happen from a distance (my own, people around me) and how much can happen in response to the smallest choices we make and actions we take.

ugh.